Up at 6:20 this morning (late), skipped breakfast. Left house at 7:20.
At work at 8:10 - working in Bellingham today. Juggled projects and priorities until noon, then had lunch with my boss, Kevin. Worked until 4:45.
Home at 5:45 (border lineup was huge). Eating until 6:00. 15 minutes of hockey - Buffalo Sabres beating the Carolina […]

I sometimes shop at Chapters Indigo. But only when I have too … like when I get a gift certificate from IDC Canada for participating in one of their research studies.
I hate shopping there, because the site is always, without exception, slow. I have never had it respond quickly. Double plus annoying. Plus, the selection […]

OK, the title is accurate. But that’s not really why I’m making this post.
Actually, what’s going on here is that I’m testing Apple’s iWeb.
Teresa mentioned that she’d like to have something from time to time that would help her create a digital scrapbook, and so I said I’d look for something for her. It needs […]

Friends of our who recently moved to Alberta just had twins: Kathryn and Larissa.
They were born a month early - preemies - and have been in hospital for 20 days … all their young lives. Congrats Wayne and Adriana!
They emailed this photo:

That’s the number of kilometres Teresa and I drove on our recent road trip to California.
(I thought I’d finally post it just to remove it from my list of to-blog articles!)
Note: 1500 of those kilometres were done on the first killer day: Abbotsford BC to San Francisco, CA.

I had a doctor’s appointment today regarding my ravaged neck (original post, follow-up).
She’s sending me for an X-ray, to a specialist in soft-tissue neck injuries, and (probably) to get an MRI. Meanwhile, I’ll be seeing a chiropractor on Friday.
But my neck is already feeling a bit better. It usually feels a bit better every day, […]

Most disgusting apple ever

Originally uploaded by johnkoetsier.

I grabbed this apple from the fridge … and almost bit into it without looking!
Yuck.

In Canada about 50% of our gas price is tax, a fact that Toronto Sun columnist Linda Leatherdale is not happy about.
Well, I’m not either. I hate tax - it pulls money out of my pocket and into the bottomless depths of governmental waste. But I don’t think we should reduce the gas tax.
Right […]

As I mentioned recently, my neck is not in the best of health right now.
Wednesday night I injured it somehow in the middle of the night, Thursday I was in the hospital once (and almost twice) and had to wear a neck brace or collar.
Friday morning I took the collar off, very gingerly, before getting […]

Today I woke up in excruciating pain at about 3:00 AM.
Somehow during the night I buggered up my neck. I had done a workout last night, and had stretched my neck, but ‘m presuming tension was building up that the stretching did not alleviate. Anyways, some time in the night I made a wrong move, […]

Gabrielle and a partner at school have been working on a PowerPoint presentation for their geography project on India. Last night she showed us what she’s done:

Incredible India

You name it, this PowerPoint’s got it. Flying bullets, crashing text, sounds effects for every action, animated GIFs …

I’m in LONG meetings every single day this week …
So I’m leaving early in the morning, coming home late. After a few things with the kids, and a couple of words with Teresa, there’s not much time for anything else.
(In case you were wondering why posts are a little sparse this week!)

Let the hackle zipper cut in the drailing wheel

Originally uploaded by johnkoetsier.

You can’t make stuff this good up:
“Let the hackle zipper cut in the drailing wheel, then draught at full tilt to upgrade, let the drailing wheel tunning hight speed, at this time set the […]

expose

Originally uploaded by johnkoetsier.

This was my colleague Carl Forde’s desktop today - he was working on an image-manipulation web app, had a ton of photos open at once, and hit the Mac OS X expose key.
I had to ask him to take a screenshot […]

I’ve always loved reading about General George S. Patton, a passionate, brave, smart commander - who had his flaws just like the rest of us.
My favorite Patton quotes:

Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their […]

Last Sunday Teresa and I had dinner with her family … including her uncle Cal Koat, who is the creative spark behind Worldbeat Canada, “Canada’s home for contemporary global music.”
Cal does a weekly radio show on Vancouver radio station CJVB, does the Celt in a Twist top 10 list of Celtic music, and interviews world […]

I just picked up Bruce Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome (the Pete Seeger Sessions) on the weekend and I’m listening to it now.
Awesome!
If you like folk/world/bluegrass/roots music, don’t pass this up. (And if you live in Canada, like me, you’ll have to buy it in plastic and paper, since it’s not available off the Canadian iTunes […]

Tonka

Originally uploaded by johnkoetsier.

A building is going up near my Bellingham office - tilt-up construction in which huge slabs of concrete are poured, then lifted into place.
I’m wondering how the crane is going to get out …

Somebody get a video of this, please, and upload it to YouTube:

The elephant is made up of hundreds of moving parts and is made largely of wood. It will thunder through streets, squares and public spaces, along with scores of performers and some large-scale puppets.

(Saw this on BoingBoing … more details at the BBC.)